Third set slide facts

Thie Sistine Ceiling
1.The Sistine Ceiling (1508-12) byMichelangelo, 1475- 1564 (Italian)

  • Fresco
  • Took just under 4 years to accomplish
  • The ceiling is divided into sections:

1. Central panels tell the story of the human figures from the Book of Genesis in the Bible

(Noah, Flood, Noah, Adam & Eve, Creation of Eve, Creation of Adam, Creation of Water)

2. The Heavens

3. Superhuman Prophets and Sibyls who foretell the future

4. Human figures from the Bible, such as David & Goliath, Zechiariah, Judith & Holofernes

  • Commissioned by Pope Julius
  • Has since been restored.
  • It’s in the Sistine Chapel
  • Inside St. Peter’s Basilica (basilica is a dome [round] roof created by the Italians for better acoustics (sound)
  • Inside The Vatican City, inside Rome, Italy

2. Moses (1515) by Michelangelo (Italian)

· Media is marble

· It’s one of six colossal figures around Pope Julius II’s tomb, 7 feet.

· Aspects of the statue represent allegory (good vs. bad): the flowing beard suggests water, the wildly twisting hair fire, and the heavy drape suggests earth.

· Created to be seen from a second tier of the tomb, it is actually displayed at eye-level as the tomb is not the original design.

· The tomb was not completed because Pope Julius II, who commissioned the project for his tomb, quarreled with Michelangelo and Michelangelo quit.

· “When Michael Angelo died he had completed this great statue of Moses, which was set not in the place originally intended, but in its present cramped position, where its true beauty and expression are completely lost.”

· It’s in St. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, Italy.

3. View of Toledo(1595-1600) by El Greco

  • It is a landscape.
  • It is Toledo, Spain
  • This is one of two paintings that are identical that El Greco painted
  • He has imaginatively reconfigured the city, showing the cathedral not in its actual position but to the left of the Alcázar palace.
  • Signed (lower right, in Greek): DomenikosTheotokopoulos
  • El Greco, Spanish for “The Greek”, is a nickname given to the artist by the Spaniards because he came from Greece.
  • 1541-1614
  • He stayed in Toledo, Spain for nearly 40 years.
  • His characteristic style is that in which figures are elongated into flame-like forms and usually painted in cold, eerie, bluish colors express intense religious feeling
  • He creates dramatic, moody skis and greenish-gray tinges in his landscapes.
  • He was very respected as an artist and a community as a leader.
  • His art was forgotten for over 300 years and is now considered as one of the most important representatives of European Mannerism.

4. Judith and the Maid Servant(1613 or 1614) byGentileschi (Italian)

  • The painting shows the story of the Jewish heroine Judith of the city of Bethulia, who saved her people from the Assyrians by beheading the enemy general Holofernes with his own sword
  • Judith was considered by her people to be a model of female valor
  • invading general killed by Judith to save her city, Bethulia.

Artemisia Gentileschi, 1593-1652

  • Her mother died when she was 12 years old.
  • Her father was a painter and taught her to paint in his studio because she was excluded from an apprenticeship in other artists’ studios because she was a female.
  • Other than artistic training, she had little or no schooling; she did not learn to read and write until she was adult.
  • She was influenced by Caravaggio’s style and actually met Michelangelo.
  • She was the most important woman painter of Early Modern Europe because of her excellence quality of work.
  • Her first great work was created when she was just 17 years old.
  • She was raped when she was 19 years old by a friend of the family and he was found guilty at trial.
  • She was one of the very few female artists able to make a living at this time in history.
  • She often portrayed women in powerful settings, not as victims.

5. Woman Holding a Balance (1664) by Johannes Vermeer, 1632-1675 (Dutch)

· Only about 35 of his paints are known to exist today.

  • Tapestries are sign of wealth, warmth for draftiness, hand woven
  • Book and movie: The Girl with a Pearl Earring
  • Artist would mix their own pigments with a vehicle (bonding substance)

6. Chartres Cathedral, Notre Dame, France
· The window in the slide is called the Rose Window
· Located in Chartres, France
· Gothic style has 3 distinguishing features: Arched Doorways, Valted Ceilings and Rose Windows
· The master-builder of the Chartres Cathedral inspired all of the great architects of the 13th century.
· The finest example in all of France of the “high Gothic” style of architecture
· A fire in 1194 destroyed all but the west front of the cathedral, which represents the “early Gothic” style.
7. Mary Magdalene with Oil Lamp by de la Tour
· Never heard of him? Few people have. After his death in 1652, La Tour's work seemed to vanish from the art scene and history books but has been rediscovered in this century, because his works speak strongly to modern tastes.
· French Baroque Painter best known for his dramatic use of chiaroscuro, particularly for his Nocturnes, in which a single candle lights a figure.
· Baroque was a style that was a reaction against Mannerism that dominated the Late Renaissance.
· Baroque is more realistic and emotional than Mannerism.
· Baroque art was encouraged by the Catholic Church, the most important patron of the arts at that time.
· Then, in the 18th Century, the Baroque style was replaced by the Rococo art style.
· Mary Magdalene, a devoted disciple of Jesus, was a favorite theme in Catholic art.
· Mary Magdalene’s profile is illuminated by candlelight, renouncing the vanities of worldly life.
· The skull is a symbol of the ephemeral character of mortal life.
· The candle could be a metaphor for a life which consumes itself in love and service to others.
8. The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch
· Rembrandt uses chiaroscuro in his paintings, with emphasis on the mysterious, evocative qualities of shadow.
· However, the title The Night Watch is not the correct, original title (but what it is now called).
· By the time Rembrandt painted the civic guards, it was no longer necessary for them to go out on watches in Amsterdam by night or day.
· People began to call it The Night Watch because the canvas had become so darkened by dirt and layers of varnish that it was difficult to tell whether Rembrandt meant for the light to be provided by the sun or moon. (Remember: no electricity!)
· The infamous phrase "Rembrandt brown" was used because people thought that he was a monotonous colorist who worked with a low-keyed palette.
· Rembrandt, possibly more than any other artist, has suffered from poor picture restorers.
· At the end of World War II, the painting was fully restored so that the viewer could see the brightness of Rembrandt’s paintings 300 years before. (Upon seeing the refreshed work, journalists promptly re-christened it the "Day Watch.")
· In the 20th century, many Rembrandt paintings have been stripped of their dirty and discolored overlays of color and varnish, with critics now realizing his genius as a colorist.
9.Las Meninasby Velazquez, Spanish
· Velazquez was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV and one of the supreme painters of all time.
· He was a portrait artist of the baroque period and created scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family.
· Like others, Velazquez was greatly impressed by manner of Caravaggio.
· The Infanta Margarita appears delicate, fragile, smallest and clearly the central figure.
· She is the daughter of King Philip IV of Spain and Mariana of Austria.
· She is surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, her dwarf, and her mastiff.
· Her ladies-in-waiting, known by the Portuguese name of meninas, are doing their best to cajole her, and have brought her dwarfs to amuse her.
· The mirror on the back wall of the studio reflects the figures of the King and Queen, who are sitting for their portrait and are the actual focus of the painting.
· The Infanta Margarita is flanked by two maids of honour, one of them serving her refreshments while the other curtsies to the royal couple.
10. Merrymakers at Shrovetide by Franz Hals
· Dutch Baroque painter
· Specialized in portraits
· Hals’ painting technique was close to impressionism in its looseness, and he painted with increasing freedom as he grew older.
· The jovial spirit of Merrymakers at Shrovetide can be compared to Mardi Gras
· The subject is about a pre-Lenten feast devoted to fools.
· One character has a garland of eggs and sausages, and one has sausages on his cap.
· The "young woman" is most likely a male actor who is surrounded by food, objects such as the bagpipe, and an obscene gesture.
· By middle age, joviality began to disappear from his paintings.
· His old age, he shows characters with a shade of sadness in their faces.